If there’s any indication to how strong a brand Palmer Bowman built Orange soccer, it was on the final day of tryouts.
On July 31, new Orange men’s soccer coach Jose Hidalgo stood before 60 players, thanking them for their time and effort, but acknowledging some of them would be cut from the team.
By his own admission, it’s Hidalgo’s least favorite part of the job.
Assistant coach Angel Chavez, who played at Orange under Bowman, estimated there were 38 players at tryouts his senior year.
“Things have changed,” Chavez said.
After eleven years in charge of Orange soccer, Bowman stepped down at the end of the greatest season in school history last winter. The winningest coach since the program started in the fall of 1987, Bowman led the Panthers to a conference championship for the first time since Orange fielded its first men’s soccer team in the fall of 1987. The Panthers sewed up the crown with a win at Seaforth. A week later, the Panthers defeated the Hawks again, reaching the third round of the state playoffs for the first time.
“Palmer did a phenomenal job,” Hidalgo said. “I know it was a big responsibility and it’s terrifying to step inside such big shoes. He has been a tremendous supporter during this transition. Every day, I talk to him to text him about logistics and he’s always there.”
Hidalgo is no stranger to success. He led the Stanback Middle School men’s soccer team to six consecutive Northern Division championships in the Orange Person Athletic Conference. They never lost to a divisional rival during his stint.
“I wouldn’t say it’s daunting,” Hidalgo said of his new role. “It’s more like a big responsibility to come into the school, to the core of what it means to be a Panther and to keep high standards as Coach Bowman had for many years.”
Hidalgo prepared for his new job last year, when he was Orange’s junior varsity coach.
The Panthers will have to replace six of its top seven scorers from last year. At the top of a long list of graduates is Dallas Johnson, the first player in school history to be named All-State twice. Johnson, a four-sport athlete who ran cross country during soccer season, was the 2025 Big 7 Defensive Player of the Year and scored seven goals last year.
John Gomez, who paced the squad with 15 goals, has also graduated. So has Yurem Tapia Mendez, who had 12 goals and 17 assists. Another senior, Carson Condon, added nine goals in 2026.
If that wasn’t enough, Orange’s starting goalkeeper the past two years has also left. Hector Garrido, a rising senior, transferred to Burlington Christian Academy. Last September, Garrido saved a penalty kick in the final minute of regulation to preserve a 1-0 win over Southeast Alamance, which sparked a six-game winning streak.
Among the returners for Orange will be reliable wingback stalwart John Williams and striker Eddy Gonzales, a rising junior who came out of nowhere to score his first varsity goal in the playoff win over Seaforth.
Overall, the Class of 2026 was responsible for 34 wins over the past two years, the most over any identical stretch in program history. Last year’s squad finished 18-6.
Hidalgo says it will be a year of transition.
“We have a lot of new talent coming in,” Hidalgo said. “I’ve been surprised with the amount of freshman that have coming in. The seniors are still very solid. We’ve lost one very strong player. We want to continue to develop, to grow and continue to be successful.”
Hidalgo returned to coaching last week after a summer cheering on his homeland in the World Cup. He turned his fandom for Ecuador up to eleven, even after an upset loss to the Ivory Coast in the group stage and another to Mexico during the knockout round.
“I’m OK as long as we lost to a Latin American team,” he says with a chuckle.
Hidalgo learned how to play soccer and how to coach it in Ecuador before moving to the United States with his wife in 2006. While in Ecuador, he worked with two biology professors, who invited him to come to St. Louis. Hidalgo earned his Masters in Science from St. Louis University. It’s also where he met his wife, an ardent St. Louis Blues fan. He hasn’t seen Ecuador since.
The couple and their children moved to Berkeley, California, where he was a stay-at-home father to his twin boys for four years. From there, Hidalgo’s family moved to Miami, where Jorge became a graduate student at the University of Miami working to attain his Ph.D in biology. After three years, he realized he was spending too much time away from his family and put his doctoral work on pause.
Instead, he became a teacher at the university. Somehow, he also found time to become a scuba instructor.
When several friends from Miami moved to Hillsborough, Hidalgo and his family decided to join them.
“When we visited, we fell in love,” Hidalgo said.
They sold their Miami house in three months and made Hillsborough their new home.
When COVID hit in 2020, Hidalgo returned to being a stay-at-home father, which he describes as being the best job he ever had. He was also without middle school athletics for two full years. He taught in front of black screens for months before becoming an assistant for Stanback soccer and wrestling.
